Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Experiences Associated With Non-Suicidal Self Injury: An Internet Survey, Shana Anne Franklin

Theses and Dissertations

Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) is characterized as self-harm without suicidal intent. NSSI typically encompasses behaviors such as "cutting" or "burning" one's self. Recent research has found NSSI to be increasingly prevalent in young adults, particularly those of college age, and that NSSI is associated with significant negative health consequences. Current conceptualization of NSSI includes four distinct functions described as The Four Factor Model of NSSI (Nock and Prinstein, 2004). The present study surveys UWM students to assess for NSSI and to follow-up with additional questions relating to the Four Factor Model. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the two …

An Anaylsis Of Patient-Physician Discourse: Comparing Physician Diagnostic Scripts To Patient Social Script Expectations, Denis Grimes

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how participants interpret physicians' diagnostic discourse and physician interruptions during the patient's disclosure of problems and concerns. Using medical diagnostic scripts written for upper respiratory infections, participants' reactions to physician attentiveness and physician interruptions were measured. When physicians interrupt patients during the patient's disclosure of problems and concerns, interruptions violate patient's social script expectations and negatively affect patient satisfaction. Physicians' demonstrations of attentiveness and explanations of the purposes for the interruptions do not compensate for interruption's effects, and satisfaction with physician behavior is reduced.

Material Expressions Of Social Change: Indigenous Sicilian Responses To External Influences In The First Millennium B.C., William Balco

Theses and Dissertations

Following the arrival of Greek colonists and Phoenician traders in the seventh century BC, indigenous Iron Age Sicilian populations underwent an intensive process of social transformation. As a result, many new behaviors, including those associated with Greek-style feasting and commensality, were introduced to indigenous Sicilians, together with the associated material culture. This study explores Iron Age indigenous Sicilian social responses to these interactions, focusing on the feast as a conduit of change and the concomitant transformation of feasting accoutrements. Vessel form, manufacturing technique, and surface treatment impact the emblemic ceramic styles used to communicate ethnic affiliations in the various social …

Rapid Knowledge Assessment (Rka): Assessing Students Content Knowledge Through Rapid, In Class Assessment Of Expertise, Erin Margaret O'Connell

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding how students go about problem solving in chemistry lends many possible advantages for interventions in teaching strategies for the college classroom. The work presented here is the development of an in-classroom, real-time, formative instrument to assess student expertise in chemistry with the purpose of developing classroom interventions. The development of appropriate interventions requires the understanding of how students go about starting to solve tasks presented to them, what their mental effort (load on working memory) is, and whether or not their performance was accurate. To measure this, the Rapid Knowledge Assessment (RKA) instrument uses clickers (handheld electronic instruments for …

Six Discourse Markers In Tunisian Arabic: A Syntactic And Pragmatic Analysis, Chris Adams

Theses and Dissertations

The following study is a description and analysis of six discourse markers in Tunisian Arabic. In it I will attempt to determine the syntactic and pragmatic roles of each marker, describing its function in discourse. The final analysis will be based on the pragmatic model of relevance theory.

I have based my study on thirty-two (32) texts in Tunisian Arabic, looking at frequently-occurring discourse markers in these texts and analyzing them based on their discourse roles in terms of local cohesion and pragmatic inference.

The conclusions of this study focus on the conceptual and procedural content of each discourse marker. …

The Acoustic Qualities Of Embera Katío Stops, Gisella Teresa Greenfield Vélez

Theses and Dissertations

Embera Katío is a Chocó language of Colombia. This thesis presents the results of an acoustic analysis of the stops as produced by speakers from the departments of Córdoba and Antioquia. The analysis of the stops allows me to establish more conclusively their actual physical correlates and corresponding phonological categories.

Five male adult native speakers of Embera Katío were recorded on location. Each one pronounced sixty-one words in a constant sentential frame, five times each. The utterances were analyzed acoustically, measuring duration, formant onset time, pre-voicing, and burst.

Analysis of the data verifies that Embera Katío has three series of …

The Phonology And Morphology Of Verb Forms In Mubi, Davis Prickett

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of the verb system of Mubi, an Eastern Chadic language spoken in central Chad. Previous brief analyses of the Mubi verb system have been used to demonstrate and reconstruct the Proto-Chadic verb system. However, these analyses are based on a very limited amount of data and information on the language. This thesis provides more complete data on the verb system of Mubi in order to attain a more comprehensive description and analysis, as well as to evaluate the previous claims that have been made regarding the verb system.

Chapter 1 gives a general introduction to …

Articulating The "L" Word Online: A Study Of Chinese Slash Fandom Of Super Girl, Jing Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a case study of one of the most popular online Chinese fandoms, Fei Se Chao Nv. This online Chinese fan forum is dedicated to slash writings and queer readings of androgynous female celebrities of a sensational Chinese reality TV show, Super Girl. The purpose of this study is to explicate the intricate negotiations between queer and normative cultures within this online, non-mainstream, fannish space. Through a discourse analysis of how the slash fans imagine lesbian relationships, narrate lesbian stories, and queerly gossip about the Super Girl androgynous celebrities in the forum, the study concludes that the fans' …

State Anxiety And High-Risk Developmental Influences On Laboratory-Provoked Aggression, Samantha L. Chase

Theses and Dissertations

Recent literature has identified a subtype of anxious people who appear to be at risk for aggression as opposed to inhibited and withdrawn as might otherwise be predicted among anxious individuals. While physical aggression is not typically associated with anxiousness, the current study examined the effect of both state and trait anxiety and other development factors on laboratory-provoked aggression in males.

Participants (N = 56) were randomly assigned to anxiety induction and control groups. An attempts was made to induce anxiety using a videotapes speech procedure. Several self-report measures were completed to gather developmental information such as history of aggressiveness, …

The Effect Of Pause Duration On Intelligibility Of Non-Native Spontaneous Oral Discourse, Ryan Frederick Lege

Theses and Dissertations

Pausing is a natural part of human speech. Pausing is used to segment speech, negotiate meaning, and allow for breathing. In oral speech, pausing, along with other suprasegmental features, plays a critical role in creating meaning as comprehensible speech is seen as a goal for language learners around the world. In order to be comprehensible, language learners need to learn to pause correctly in their speaking. Though this notion is widely accepted by applied linguists and many language teachers, the effect of pausing on intelligibility of spontaneous oral discourse has not been established by empirical data. This study isolates pause …

Mental Health Treatment For Children And Adolescents: Cost Effectiveness, Dropout, And Recidivism By Presenting Diagnosis And Therapy Modality, David Fawcett

Theses and Dissertations

As many as one in five children and adolescents may suffer from a mental health disorder, yet there are barriers that often prevent children from receiving optimal treatment. The current study explores the influence of practitioner license type, therapy modality, diagnosis, age, and gender on mental health therapy for children and adolescents. Data was provided by Cigna, a leading health care insurance provider in the United States. Participants include 106,374 boys (53.2%) and 93,753 girls (46.8%) ages 3 to 18 (M = 12.1, SD = 3.9) who were treated in outpatient facilities throughout the United States of America. Results indicate …

There's No Place Like Home: How Residential Attributes Affect Family Functioning, Carly Marie Thornock

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which actual (e.g., density and openness) and perceptual (e.g., crowding and distance) elements of the spatial home environment act as predictors of family functioning. Data were gathered from 126 families whose child was attending a university’s preschool/kindergarten facility in a mid-sized community in the Western United States. Structural equation modeling (SEM, AMOS 19.0) was employed to examine the strength of the relationships within the model. Results showed that though actual home items (specifically density and great room openness) affect family functioning outcomes, perceived crowding was especially influential as a …

Nobody’S Perfect: A Qualitative Examination Of African American Caregivers And Their Adolescent Daughters’ Perceptions Of Adolescent Girls’ Body Image, Michell Pope

Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly high rates of body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls are alarming. Research suggests that cultural norms emphasizing thinness and unrealistic standards of beauty may be contributing to this growing problem. This is concerning given the link between negative body image and a host of unhealthy behaviors in girls. Although historically African American adolescent girls have exhibited higher levels of body satisfaction than their counterparts, there is growing evidence to suggest that this may be changing because of the body-related messages they receive from their parents, peers and the media. The present study examines these messages from both maternal caregivers’ …

Changing The Game: Corporate Social Responsibility In Women's Professional Sport, Lorie Coker

Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that female athletes have long occupied marginal and sometimes invisible positions in sport settings and mainstream media. The focus of this study is on understanding and analyzing how race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression shape women’s professional sport using as the focal point, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the type of mainstream media coverage it receives. The researcher believes that a better understanding of these varied experiences would add depth and knowledge to research on CSR in sport, women and sport research, as well as allow professional leagues and teams to move forward with a more …

Ecological Momentary Assessment And Time-Varying Factors Associated With Eating And Physical Activity, Amy Jeffers

Theses and Dissertations

The obesity epidemic is a significant problem in the United States. It is well established that lifestyle factors, such as unhealthy eating and physical inactivity, are key contributors. These causes are generally voluntary activities and it is important to examine health decision-making with respect to these behaviors. The current study examined time-varying factors of stress and mood and their relationship with healthy eating and physical activity in a sample of undergrads (N = 26). Ecological momentary assessment via one's cell phone was used to collect multiple measurements over six days. Positive mood was found to follow physical activity episodes for …

Effects Of Imagery Training On Language In Expressive Writing, Therese Verkerke Cash

Theses and Dissertations

Research examining language in written and oral trauma narratives indicates that exposure and cognitive processing are important processes responsible for therapeutic change. Bio-informational theory, which defines emotions as the activation of response, stimulus, and meaning units in memory, provides a meaningful structure for evaluating language in traumatic and neutral essays. This study examined the effects of imagery training procedures designed to prime activation of response or stimulus units on word usage. The effect of writing instructions on activation of meaning units was also investigated. Unscreened undergraduates (n=246) were randomly assigned in a 2 writing condition (traumatic or neutral) x 3 …

Cardiovascular Reactivity In Friendships: Length Of Relationship And Frequency Of Contact As Potential Moderators, Benjamin D. Clark

Theses and Dissertations

Social support has been linked to positive health outcomes. Specifically, having available support from a friend may act as a buffer to the negative effects of stress on cardiovascular reactivity. Relationship quality is an important moderator of this effect. The purpose of this study was to examine how cardiovascular reactivity is affected by relationship quality within friendships and whether the length of relationship and frequency of contact may moderate the effect. 134 healthy male and female adults (and their same-sex friend) were recruited to participate. Results revealed no significant difference between subjects interacting with supportive friends compared to interacting with …

Perceptions And Experiences Of Adolescent Students With Disabilities Regarding "Flextime" In A Response To Intervention Model, Julie G. Daye

Theses and Dissertations

Attitudes of Adolescent Students with Disabilities Regarding "Flextime" in a Response to Intervention Model Julie Daye Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education, BYU Educational Specialist in School Psychology One of the stumbling blocks to implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) in a secondary school is finding time for students to receive second level instruction. Evidence of effective implementation of RTI in elementary schools is more prevalent than in secondary schools. There is limited information on how to restructure school time and other resources in order to successfully implement RTI in secondary schools. Evidence is also limited regarding the impact of …

Discovering How Community Organizing Leads To Social Change: Developing Formal Practice Theory For Social Workers Engaged In Empowering Community Organizing, Shane Brady

Theses and Dissertations

Community organizing as an area of social work practice has historic roots in challenging inequality, building capacity, and meeting the needs of local peoples through taking collective action. While the literature of community organizing is rich in conceptual frameworks, practice approaches, and case studies, it lacks the level of formal theory that exists in clinical social work. Formal practice theories provide social workers with evidence informed guidance about “what to do”, “how to do it”, and “what to expect”; however, social workers engaging in community organizing have little formal practice theory. The results of this study build the beginning foundation …

Virginia Transportation Funding: An Analysis Of Enhancing The Secondary Highway System Construction Allocation Model Using Brian D. Taylor’S Geographical Equity Criteria, Wendell Point

Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this research is Virginia’s Secondary Highway Construction System funding allocations and its impact on statewide deficient lane miles reduction. The research question guiding this study is: “Which of the four allocation models -- the current Secondary Highway System allocation model or one of three alternatives of this model based on Brian D. Taylor’s geographic equity categories (outcome, opportunity, and market) best maximizes statewide deficient lane miles reductions?” Taylor defines each of these geographic equity categories (independent variables for this study) for all levels of government. While Taylor’s research focus has been on equity as it relates to …

Inspiration: Examining Its Emotional Correlates And Relationship To Internalized Values, David Jennings Ii

Theses and Dissertations

The study of inspiration as a psychological construct has received little empirical attention to date. In the present dissertation, I review the empirical literature on inspiration and present a theoretical model and definition of inspiration. In two studies, I tested a Value-Congruent Model of Inspiration and my proposed definition. In Study 1 (N = 134), I explored inspiration’s emotional correlates and tested whether individuals experience greater inspiration if the inspirational content is concordant with individual meaning and values. As predicted, state inspiration was positively related to state levels of admiration, awe, and elevation, and value-congruent stimuli significantly predicted self-reported experiences …

The Multiple Perspectives Of The Lived Experience Of Civil Detainment, Linda Love

Theses and Dissertations

Civil detainment can be confusing, frustrating, and scary especially if the criteria for civil detainment are being applied inconsistently. A constructivist inquiry, using qualitative techniques as the primary information gathering method, was conducted to gain a better understanding about the experience of civil detainment. Twenty-five stakeholders participated in this research effort. Questions regarding the meaning of civil detainment were explored in five stakeholder groups; individuals with mental illness, families, mental health professionals, first responders and judicial professionals. Civil detainment is described as a “necessary evil” however, mandated treatment is also described as a means to restore dignity. Implications are included …

Relationships Among Acculturation, Self-Positivity Bias, Stigma, And Condom Use In A Sample Of Urban College Students, Molly Neff

Theses and Dissertations

Despite an increase in interventions targeted at lowering the rate of HIV/AIDS among college students, the rate of HIV/AIDS infections has not decreased. The purpose of this study was to identify factors (i.e., HIV-sexual knowledge, self-positivity bias, peer norms, acculturation, perceived risk of HIV, HIV-related stigma, and condom use) that may affect condom use among college students who live in an area where the prevalence of HIV is relatively high. The current study utilized a sexually active sample (N=397) of diverse college students (predominantly African American and White) in an urban setting to examine the relationships. Path analysis was used …

Personality And Interpersonal Predictors Among Ministers: Preference For Pastoral Counseling Tasks, Jessica Young Brown

Theses and Dissertations

A review of vocational assessment in ministry populations revealed that since the 1950s, ministers have been assessed using psychological and vocational assessments in an effort to ascertain goodness of fit for ministry tasks. However, ministers consistently produce profile reports that are significantly different from the population as a whole. In addition, while there has been much research on the general ministerial vocation, there has been little research on particular ministerial roles and the predictors for ministers who will excel in those tasks. The literature on ministers is outdated and has not taken into consideration the peculiar characteristics of the ministry …

Desire And Opportunity To Marry Among Black South African Women, Colleen Rebecca Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how demographic and attitudinal variables are associated with Black South African women's desire to marry. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey are used to measure the impact of age, education, living standard, religiosity, urbanicity, cohabitation, and attitudes towards woman's careers, the acceptability of cohabitation, gender roles, unwed childbearing, and the financial and emotional security marriage provides on the desire to marry. Analyses indicate the following are associated with the desire to marry among Black South African women: age, cohabitation, attitudes towards cohabitation, and attitudes towards the financial and emotional security marriage provides. Secondly, data from …

Care For The Socially Disadvantaged: The Role Of Race And Gender On The Physician-Patient Relationship And Patient Outcomes In A Safety Net Primary Care Clinic., Daniel Baughn

Theses and Dissertations

Compared to the general population, socially disadvantaged patients have higher rates of chronic illness and require more complex medical care. They also endorse higher levels of psychological distress and tend to engage in behavioral risk factors such as poor diet, physical inactivity, and smoking. These issues are particularly concerning given that this population tends to adhere less to medical recommendations, has limited access to health resources, and receives poorer treatment from providers. In an effort to address this disparity, The Affordable Care Act will expand health care access to an additional 23 million uninsured and 17 million underinsured Americans. However, …

Increasing Positive Social Interaction Among Kindergarten Students, Scott M. Trinh

Theses and Dissertations

The current literature lacks empirically-supported preventative approaches for kindergarten students who are socially withdrawn and behind in the development of social skills. Furthermore, parents are underutilized in interventions during this critical period of social development. In response to this need, a classroom-based intervention consisting of (a) social skills training, (b) self-evaluation and reinforcement, (c) home notes and parent involvement, and (d) adult mediation was implemented to increase the positive social engagement of three kindergarten students. The effects of this intervention were evaluated on the playground during recess using partial interval recording of target students’ positive or negative engagement with at …

Alerting The Public During Food Product Recalls: Social Media's Impact On Organizational Reputation, Salita Demary

Theses and Dissertations

Crisis managers are constantly striving to find the best media outlets to reach the public in the event of a crisis or emergency and still maintain good public reputation. This researcher uses the food industry to examine the impact social media is having on the way the public is gathering news. This researcher will also study generational divides and how news gathering preferences differ among generational groups. This study also investigates the impact social media use has on organizational reputation in a crisis. A focus group and content analysis will serve as this study's qualitative measures and a surveymonkey.com survey …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Nasa Media Relations Strategies And The Relationship To U.S. Space Policy, Julian Gibson

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes for this comparative analysis were to (a) compare the efficacy of NASA media relations strategies according to NASA's stakeholders and (b) reveal if these media relations strategies have a causal relationship or correlation with U.S. space policy. NASA employees reflected positive responses to questions related to the efficacy of NASA media relations strategies and the overall communications philosophy of the organization. Journalists who report on NASA through traditional and online channels had mixed responses toward the organizations media relations efforts during crisis situations like the Columbia and Challenger shuttle disasters. However, journalists were very supportive of NASA's dissemination …

The Impact Of Social Media On The Access Of Music Among Rowan University Students, Douglas Cohen

Theses and Dissertations

The study's primary goal was to determine the extent and impact of social media on Rowan University student's access of music. Social media and music have become a significant part of college student life. The vast majority of student age ranges from 18 to 24. The study's secondary goal was to determine if social media has replaced the traditional music label of feature films and whether it affects more males or females in the 18 to 24 year-old demographic. To ascertain both levels of data, the researcher used intercept surveys and questionnaires. The intercept surveys were administered to 400 Rowan …